The tech and finance chattering classes have crowned Robinhood the main character recently — and for good reason. Revenue in the last quarter surpassed $1 billion, the SEC entirely dropped its investigation into the company amid new regulatory clarity, and co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev even graced the pages of The Washington Post in January with an op-ed about blockchain technology.

The enthusiasm isn’t just hype. Put simply, there isn’t another player in consumer finance that has been able to match both Robinhood’s shipping speed and distribution. But it wasn’t always that way. Historically, Robinhood has been an underdog — its stock was basically flat from 2022 to 2024 — but the company has leveraged its recent success to build up a huge competitive advantage in creating new standards in consumer finance.